Technical Field
The present invention relates to an evacuation travelling assistance apparatus.
Related Art
Emergency evacuation systems have been proposed that detect reduction in the level of consciousness of the driver and evacuate the own vehicle to an evacuation destination (refer to, for example, JP-A-2009-151522).
In the case of the technology described in above-mentioned JP-A-2009-151522, a travelling vehicle is evacuated to the road shoulder. However, the technology described in JP-A-2009-151522 does not evaluate or determine in any way whether or not the road shoulder that serves as the evacuation destination is actually a safe location.
Therefore, for example, the vehicle may be evacuated to the road shoulder, regardless of whether the road shoulder is along a straight route that offers good visibility (in other words, an evacuation destination that has a high level of safety) or at the end of a curve that offers poor visibility (in other words, an evacuation destination that has a low level of safety). As a result, when an evacuation destination that has a low level of safety like the latter is selected, compared to when an evacuation destination that has a high level of safety like the former is selected, disadvantages arise such as an increased probability of a minor collision with a following vehicle occurring.
In some cases, when only an evacuation destination that has a low level of safety is present, stopping the vehicle in an evacuation destination that has a low level of safety becomes unavoidable. However, in cases in which the vehicle can reach an evacuation destination having a high level of safety simply by travelling slightly farther from the location of the evacuation destination having a low level of safety, evacuation of the vehicle to the evacuation destination having a high level of safety may possibly be more advantageous.
Conversely, in cases in which the travelling distance to a location in which the vehicle can be stopped becomes excessively long as a result of the vehicle being evacuated to an evacuation destination that has a high level of safety, factors leading to accidents may increase by a similar extent. Therefore, in the above-described technology described in JP-A-2009-151522 in which the evacuation destination is determined without comprehensively determining these various conditions, a problem occurs in that evacuation of the vehicle to an evacuation destination that has a higher level of safety may not necessarily be actualized.